Spike Lee's Asian Remake

'Oldboy' is based on a violent and disturbing South Korean film

Director Spike Lee says when he tells people what "Oldboy" is about, he uses one word: "revenge." You could say it's about karma, but, he says, "I think people understand revenge better."

In the film, which opens Nov. 27, Josh Brolin plays Joe Doucett, a sleazeball account executive and lousy father. He spends a drunken night with a prostitute and wakes up in a phony motel room, which actually is a bizarre prison cell. Clueless about what's going on, he spends 20 years there, fed a daily meal of Chinese dumplings. He passes through the classic stages of unexplained long-term incarceration: confusion, disbelief, struggle, resignation, beard-growing, suicide attempt, bodybuilding, escape plan. Mr. Brolin gained and lost 50 pounds for the role.

ENLARGE

Min-sik Choi in the 2003 South Korean version of 'Oldboy'
Everett Collection

When he gets out, he embarks on a vengeful mission to find out what just happened and get the guy who did it (working from a long list of people he's treated badly). He also believes redemption may come from finding his daughter, who was three when he vanished and has been misled by news reports saying her absentee dad murdered her mom (it was a frame-up, part of the mystery). Michael Imperioli, Elizabeth Olsen, Sharlto Copley, and Samuel L. Jackson help him sort things out.

"Oldboy" is a remake of a 2003 South Korean film of the same name. Director Chan-wook Park's visually lavish original is violent and disturbing—and at first glance the kind of movie they don't make at American studios. It's based on a Japanese manga comic. Mark Protosevich, screenwriter of the new version, calls the original "for lack of a better term, a very Eastern film or Asian film." Revealing too much could be a spoiler, but in one scene which would seem foreign to Americans, the main character eats a live, writhing squid. The filmmakers would need to tweak the cultural cues and story twists enough to help Western audiences relate.

That obstacle didn't stop major U.S. filmmakers from pursuing "Oldboy." In 2008, the American studio DreamWorks secured U.S. rights with the idea of Will Smith starring and Steven Spielberg directing. They brought in Mr. Protosevich, who drafted a 30-page treatment for a westernized version of the movie. Mr. Protosevich has become a sort of specialist in adapting existing material: He wrote the script for Marvel Entertainment's first "Thor" movie as well as "Poseidon" (a remake of "The Poseidon Adventure") and "I Am Legend," which is based on a 1954 novel that was also made into "The Omega Man" (1971) and "The Last Man on Earth" (1964). The Smith-Spielberg package fell apart, but the film project lived on when Mr. Lee jumped in as director and helped secure Mr. Brolin.

Watch a clip from Spike Lee's "Oldboy." Starring Josh Brolin, the film is a re-imagining of the original Korean thriller.

The filmmakers are aware that fans of the Korean original have been suspicious of the idea of a remake.

"Some of those people are justified, based upon other attempts to translate Asian cinema into American mainstream films," Mr. Lee says.

"I think the suspicion was that it would somehow be made safer, and we wouldn't go to the very dark places that the original did," adds Mr. Protosevich. "To criticisms that this is a case of Hollywood trying to cash in by remaking a popular Asian film, he points out that "Oldboy" is hardly an obvious candidate for box-office riches:

"Show me anyone who looks at the original film and says, 'Wow, this is gonna be the next 'Transformers'!' "

The filmmakers really are after an audience that hasn't seen the original, people who may be truly shaken up to see the new "Oldboy" at the start of holiday movie season on Thanksgiving weekend. The filmmakers don't soften the unsettling themes or the violence (hammer-battle fans, rejoice). Thankfully they leave out the eating of the live squid.

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